First-Year Special Educators

Abstract

Despite a history of research in general education on novice teachers, researchers have only recently begun to investigate the experiences of beginning special educators. Many of these studies describe problems encountered, noting the high attrition rate among beginning special education teachers and emphasizing the importance of keeping qualified special educators in the field. The findings of this survey of first-year special education teachers ( N = 596) extend the literature by revealing the influence of classroom and school context factors on new teachers' accomplishments and problems.